Recount to start Wednesday

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has decided that the national recount will commence on Wednesday, May 6, 2020. While much of GECOM’s work in preparation for the recount has been finalised, the matter of the live stream continues to be a sore spot for the Commission. Due to staunch advocacy by many political stakeholders for the project to be streamed live, the Chair has made several concessions. She has agreed to a video and live stream of the tabulation of the votes, but only an audio stream of the counting of the ballots. She rejected a video stream of the count of the ballots on the condition that she did not want to expose the identities of the GECOM staffers. Commissioners did not appear sure of how an audio stream of the count would work. The Chair is expected to make a ruling on this. Kaieteur News understands that Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield also expressed some concerns about the live streaming of the process. The Chair’s only additional concession on this matter is that she wanted to also articulate to the public that the ballot boxes were not tampered with, perhaps, by publishing photos of them at the time of their opening during the recount, according to Commissioner Vincent Alexander.

Commissioner Sase Gunraj, however, continues to advocate for a complete audio and video stream of the entire process. While he understands the Chair’s concerns about concealing the identities of the staffers, he doesn’t entirely agree. He posited that his bottom line is to ensure that all measures should be implemented where possible to make the process transparent. He added that any person who is opposed to having the complete live stream done may have something to hide.

(Kaieteur News)